


Nothing We Will Be

by Miss_Missing_You



Series: Calliope Danvers [3]
Category: Fallout 3
Genre: Angst, F/M, Pre-Relationship, Underage Drinking, tw: descriptions of bullying, tw: light violence (but its not graphic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:35:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21516154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Missing_You/pseuds/Miss_Missing_You
Summary: The one in which Calliope and Butch are not friends.  Definitely, he hates her and she can barely stand the sight of him. Right?ORThe one in which they're just kids and the world is telling them who they are without asking them first.  Calliope sits in back corridors reading, Butch sits in them drinking.  And they're still not friends... right?
Relationships: Butch DeLoria/Female Lone Wanderer
Series: Calliope Danvers [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/895653
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	Nothing We Will Be

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a prequel to my fic _Everything We Were_ \- which is a fic that means a lot to me, Calliope is a character that means a lot to me - and this is just an idea I could not get out of my head.
> 
> I published it on here earlier this year but took it down when it didn't get any reception. Now I don't care because I read it back a couple weeks ago and was like "this fic slaps". So I'm publishing it again because I'm tired and procrastinating an essay that is due tomorrow. So here you go.

_After the vault door closes everything is silent. There’s a door at the end of the cave. It’s wooden, old and weathered. To be honest Calliope’s surprised it’s lasted this long. In a trance she moves towards it. She keeps her eyes up. To look at the ground is to look at death. Skeletons litter the cave floor. They were clawing at the vault door. Holding signs. Dying. She reaches the wooden door. It creaks as she opens it. Then she’s blinded._

*

For a second the world is black. Calliope screws up her eyes and flinches as Butch’s punch collides with her face. It hurts like hell. If Butch has broken her nose she’ll kill him. Ignoring the dizziness that’s starting to come on, she hurls a punch back. The noise that happens when it hits his jaw is way too satisfying. So what if she may have broken her hand, it’s worth it to see the shocked look on his face. But then the ‘tunnel snakes’ are rounding on her. Someone just hit her in the ribs and it’s fucking painful. She can’t breathe. Amata’s screaming.

It’s dramatic but Calliope thinks she coughs up some blood once Mr Brotch has pulled the boys off her. Amata rushes to her side. Calliope doesn’t miss how her friend has to force herself to look at her. And how pity and disapproval lace her gaze.

“Why do you always have to escalate things?” Amata asks. Calliope raises an eyebrow at her. Seriously? When Amata just looks back, she just rolls her eyes. As she walks away she spits some blood on the floor.

The ‘tunnel snakes’ block the classroom entrance. There’s angry red bruise beginning to bloom across Butch’s jaw. At least she got one good punch in. Calliope smiles at that. From the way Paul looks away she guesses it’s not the prettiest sigh. Her nose is bleeding and some got in her mouth. Her smile probably looks extremely grim. Her dad is going to be so mad – especially if she doesn’t do well in the GOAT.

“Watch you’re back Nosebleed,” Butch spits at her. His spit isn’t mixed with blood. Too bad.

*

_Sunlight. It’s not even that bright but Calliope still has to cover her eyes. The sky is overcast and the air smells funny. Not funny – different. It’s going to rain, says this voice in the back her mind. The grey sky tints the world blue. In the vault everything had been are a harsh yellow-green. The lights had buzzed and flickered slightly. It used to give Calliope headaches._

*

Her head hurts like a bitch. That’s why Calliope’s sitting in this alcove. It’s definitely not because she can’t deal with Amata right now. If the alcove happens to be on the reactor level and Amata never deigns to go down there… well that’s just coincidence.

She’s sat with the Pip-Boy handbook in front of her and her own Pip-Boy open in her lap. Stanley said she should brush up on basics. (She read and memorised the handbook a week after her tenth birthday, but it’s not like anyone knows that.) So that’s why Calliope is using a screwdriver – which she definitely didn’t not swipe from Jonas – to poke around in the back of her Pip-Boy. It’s not like Amata can reprimand her for working. Although she can do it for stealing and the Pip-Boy is the only thing Calliope has with the owner’s knowledge. The owner being herself.

“Clear out, Nosebleed.” Calliope flinches at the sound of Butch’s voice. It’s been three weeks since he told her to watch her back. She’s really not in the mood to get beat up at the moment. Plus her ribs still hurt.

“Not today Butch. You and your cronies can meet somewhere else.” With that she hunches back over her Pip-Boy. Butch doesn’t leave. Instead he slides down the wall opposite her and pulls an unmarked bottle of brown liquid from inside his jacket.

“I’m alone, dipshit, and I ain’t planning on fighting you.” He rubs his jaw to punctuate the point. The satisfactions she felt when her punch landed it is back. It feels good to know that she isn’t the only one still feeling the after effects of their brawl. 

For a while they are silent apart from Butch taking swigs from the bottle. Calliope begins to tinker at the wiring. She can feel him watching her. When she looks up his eyes dart away quickly. With a sigh she closes up the Pip-Boy and puts it back on her wrist. She waits a minute checking to see it boots up fine. Then fixes Butch with a stare. He looks back at her, his grey eyes boring into her brown ones. 

After a second he raises a snarky eyebrow, then holds out the bottle to her. Hesitantly Calliope sniffs it. It smells like drain cleaner. Her disgust clearly shows on her face as Butch snickers. But that just makes her stubborn, competitive side rear its head. She takes a swig from the bottle, it takes all her willpower not to retch it back up. It burns the back of her throat as it goes down, but showing weakness in front of Butch is something she’ll never do. She shakes her head a little once it’s down and then hands the bottle back to Butch.

“Not bad, but you’re still a nosebleed.” He punctuates the statement with a swig of the bottle. Calliope analyses his face for a reaction but there is none. Secretly she wonders how long he’s been drinking that stuff. Wordlessly he passes the bottle back to her.

*

_Once her eyes adjust Calliope stares. The wind rushes against her face and for the first time she understands what it’s like to breathe. As the world becomes clear she takes it in. A ruined landscape spreads out in front of her. Below her, down the hill, is a town. A massive red rocket sprouts from the centre. It sways slightly in the wind. 200 years must have decayed whatever was holding it firmly in place. The world is silent except for the wind buffeting around her. For the first time Calliope doesn’t feel like she’s being watched._

*

“They’re looking at you again.” Calliope and Amata are sitting in the diner, passing a bottle of nuka cola between them. Amata is leaning across the table, her eyes flicking towards the ‘tunnel snakes’ who are two tables over, whispering conspiratorially. And she’s being extremely obvious about it. Calliope just shrugs, not even bothering to look.

“It’s been three months, they’re not going to jump me,” she says before taking another sip of the nuka cola. If she does slyly look around it’s not see if anyone specifically is looking at her. And she definitely doesn’t feel a weight in her stomach when it turns out that Butch may be getting personal with Susie but his eyes are trained on her. Definitely not.

“Yeah, but they’re such dicks. Why can’t they just leave us alone?”

“Amata, there are literally like fifty people in the vault, they can’t. Just ignore them.” It’s an old argument. Why Amata can’t just let it alone is beyond Calliope. She can’t be bothered to continue it. Instead she just drinks the cola and listens to Amata rant about Susie being a traitor for hanging around them. 

Part of Calliope wishes it wasn’t nuka cola she was drinking. That instead she was down near the reactor sitting in a weirdly comfortable silence with Butch. It’s a jarring realisation that has her looking back at him. He’s still fucking looking at her. It makes Calliope feel weird. Not quite uncomfortable, not threatened like she used to. Just weird.

Amata leaves at six – always Daddy’s good little girl – but Calliope stays. She picks up the book she brought with her, this time with Brotch’s permission, and begins to read. It’s about the tenth time she’s read it but that doesn’t matter. Now she just knows what to expect. Someone in a leather jacket slides into Amata’s vacant seat about five minutes after she leaves.

“What’cha reading, square?” Wally’s voice grates on Calliope’s ears. Without looking up from the page she says,

“Fuck off.”

“Language. What would the doc think if he heard his little girl talkin’ like that?” As Wally speaks another leather jacket form appears. She thinks that maybe she was wrong. Maybe three months and a few shared cigarettes or bottle didn’t change things. Maybe all this time she should have been watching her back. Calliope just knows being nice to Butch is about to bite her in the ass.

“Not today, Mack. You’re sister’ll kill me if mess up my face again.” For a second Calliope is confused but Butch continues, “Besides, Freddie’ll be here in a minute and he’ll flip his lid if you’re whaling on his girl.”

She glares at the insinuation that she and Freddie are a thing but she hopes the gratitude shines through as Butch leads Wally away from the table.

Freddie comes in a minute later. He is still wearing the greasy apron from the kitchens. As he sits down where Wally was snickers come from the ‘tunnel snakes’. Freddie turns red but Calliope just rolls her eyes. She throws a half-assed middle finger at them. The gasp that comes from Susie is almost as satisfying as the fact that Butch’s laughter rises above the rest.

*

_There’s pain in her side. Now that the adrenaline has worn off she can feel things again. The cold wind against her face. The weight of the backpack she hurriedly filled with everything she could reach. The extreme pain in her left side. She remembers- through the haze of confusion – a shot going off and something hitting her side. When she pokes at her side it hurts like hell. There’s blood on her fingers when she brings them back. The vault suit is ripped too. Groaning she falls back against the rock to her left and slides her back down in until she’s sitting._

*

Calliope’s back is flush against the cold vault wall but the rest of her is uncomfortably warm. She’s not sure what Butch brought this time but she’s far drunker than she thought she’d be. Dad is going to kill her. But when she stops thinking about dad – and the disappointed looks she’s going to get upon stumbling in after curfew – it feels good. A lot better than sharing a nuka cola with Amata. Butch is smiling too. It’s the first time she’s since it properly in a really long time. Not that she saw it much anyway. He still smiles but it’s a forced one for when Susie questions why he doesn’t. Calliope thinks she likes drunk Butch. At least he talks to her.

So it’s like half ten at night and she’s drunk on the reactor level with the boy who is supposed to be her enemy. A boy who’d said, over a year ago now, that he was going to get revenge. Unless his revenge is a long drawn out process Calliope doesn’t think it still stands. So, instead of thinking about that, she takes out a screw driver. It’s the same one she nicked from Jonas. He hasn’t noticed and maybe if she keeps it with her one day she’ll remember to sneak it back among his stuff. Besides it’s the perfect size for Pip-Boys. She takes out the screw driver and asks for Butch’s Pip-Boy. He looks at her a second, takes a drink.

“You’re drunk,” He slurs.

“So are you,” Calliope shrugs. She’s in a better state than him and it’s comforting to know. Although she did find him her already halfway through a bottle. That one is now sitting empty beside her. She chugged it after sitting down. It tasted worse than usual and is probably the reason she got so drunk so quickly. “Give me your Pip-Boy,” she insists again.

“Why?” He draws it out like a child. Calliope has to stifle the urge to laugh.

“You said last week it wasn’t working properly. I can fix it.”

You’re drunk,” he says it again, slower.

“Yes.” Calliope maintains eye contact. After a moment Butch acquiesces. Slowly, methodically, he takes off the Pip-Boy and hands it to her. This time she’s the childish one, she snatches out of his hands and goes to work.

As she messes around with the wiring she can feel Butch’s eyes on the top of her head. More and more recently she’s noticed him looking at her. It sits funny in her stomach. It’s distracting. But they sit in silence as she works. The only noise is Butch taking swigs from the bottle.

“Are you and Freddie really a thing?” It comes out of the blue as Calliope finishes screwing the back on the Pip-Boy. She waits a moment, booting up the Pip-Boy before she speaks.

“What,” is all she says. She’s not even sure she heard him right. “You and Freddie. We give him shit for it all the time, we give you shit for it too. But is it actually a thing, y’know like –”

“Like you and Susie?” Calliope looks up from the code she’s fiddling with on the screen. Butch’s face blushes in reply. “No.” It’s weird but she thinks she hears Butch very audibly exhale. “He kissed me last week, though. We both agreed it was weird. So no. We’re not a ‘thing’.”

She only mentioned the kiss thing to see how Butch would react. She doesn’t really know why she wanted to know that. What she didn’t expect when she looked at him was to see him staring at her. His eyes flicking between her eyes and her lips. From her hands to her lips. Always back to her lips. What she didn’t expect was the sudden thought that if he tried to kiss her she wouldn’t stop him.

*

_She turns her head towards the wasteland. From here she can see what used to be DC. The Washington Monument is skeletal but it still dominates the skyline. Beautifully tragic, is what this is. Shaking her head she goes into her backpack. The first things her hands touch are Jonas’ glasses and the holotape addressed to her that was in his pocket. Calliope takes the holodisk out. She traces her hand over her name, it’s her dad’s handwriting. Then she puts it in her Pip-Boy and listens._

*

“Calm down, Calliope.” Her dad’s using that exasperated tone he always uses when she starts being unreasonable. Which is to say not acting like everything is perfect. She’s not Amata and he seems to keep forgetting.

“No dad. You’re hiding something. When did we start doing that? Why can’t you just talk to me?” Calliope’s voice is rising in both pitch and volume. It would be embarrassing if she wasn’t so angry. When did her dad decide that she couldn’t handle things.

“It’s better if you’re not involved, trust me sweetheart.” He’s still so fucking calm and it hurts Calliope because she’s so fucking not. She swears it’s psychopathic the way he can just remove emotions from the equation.

“Go fuck yourself Dad,” Calliope spits before walking out. As the door opens she almost storms into a sheepish looking Jonas. She knows he’s been listening but she can’t bring herself to give a fuck. Instead she just flips him off and continues down the corridor.

It’s almost curfew but she doesn’t care. Her feet are on autopilot, walking her towards the reactor and Stanley's workshop. Right now she doesn’t need to think. She just needs to sit with the predictability of the insides of Pip-Boys. They never ask her to trust blindly. Or say they know what’s best. They just break but they can be fixed. If she misses curfew she can just sleep there. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s done it. It wouldn’t be the first time it was to avoid her dad either.

There are voices in the reactor corridor as she approaches. Raucous, drunk ones. People with no reason to fear the overseer’s wrath because when was the last time they felt it? God, in that moment Calliope hates her life. She rounds the corner and there they are. The ‘tunnel snakes’, jackets and all, are standing between her and a safe haven. 

It’s not Butch that notices her. It’s Wally. A sinister smile spreads across his face. Calliope knows, just from that, that the one punch she managed to throw when she was sixteen is coming back. Three years ago Butch told her to watch her back and she didn’t fucking believe him. Now the comeuppance is right in front of her.

Wally nudges Butch. His eyes widen when he sees her. She’s too tired of everything to run. So she stands still. Her feet glued to the ground five steps away from the ‘tunnel snakes’. Now she remembers why, in those early days of getting drunk together, she thought doing anything more than hating Butch was a bad idea. This is going to hurt so much. God-fucking-damn her. Why did she have to become friends with a person who promised to hurt her? 

They’re drunk, the whole corridor reeks of Butch’s shittiest moonshine. The smell intensifies as the walk towards her.

“Well, well, well. If it ain’t our favourite little nosebleed.” The name sounds wrong coming from Wally. Too harsh. Paul just nods along and Butch stands there for a second. The he shakes his head and a grin spreads across his face. He looks at her in a way that makes her want to run.

“That’s right. I seem to remember we made a promise a while back. Y’know a tunnel snake’s word is his bond?” Calliope wants to throw up, it seems impossible that this is the same boy that she sat sharing a cigarette with two nights ago. But the logic in her says that impossible is the one thing it isn’t. Nothing with Butch was ever going to end well. 

Calliope takes a deep breath. She’ll go down swinging. Once again she throws the first punch.

*

_It hurts hearing her father’s voice. She was so angry at him for so long. Now he’s left her and the last thing she said to him was to go fuck himself. In her head she know that she can’t blame herself for dad leaving. But her heart is convinced that maybe if she’d been a better daughter. Maybe then he wouldn’t have felt the need to go. Calliope ejects the holotape and places it into the rucksack. It’s filled with pointless stuff. She nabbed a toaster for fuck’s sake. As she reaches into the bag her hand brushes over softened leather._

*

Butch thrusts the leather jacket into her hands. It’s unexpectedly soft – years of wear she guesses. Calliope stares at his hands.

“You’re the best friend I ever had,” Butch says, his voice is the most earnest Calliope’s ever heard it. God damn him. “I know it isn’t much but I want you to have it.”

“Butch… I…” Calliope doesn’t know what to say. She can’t deal with this right now. The marks of finding the ‘tunnel snakes’ drunk after curfew still litter her body. But Butch knows that. He knows she can barely look at him. And yet.

Letting a small puff of breath Calliope stuffs the jacket into the ruck sack she picked up in her rooms. The sirens are still going. Shouts are coming from every direction. But they fade in the background as Calliope finally looks at Butch.

He looks lost. His frame is smaller without the jacket bulking him up. In that moment he looks more like the boy Calliope was almost friends with than he ever has. He runs a shaky hand through his hair and just continues looking at her. Sighing Calliope steps forward and hugs him. He sinks into her arms, pulling her tightly against him.

“Stay safe,” Calliope whispers into his ear. He nods into her shoulder and then pulls away.

“Better run away now nosebleed.” The smile he gives her after is pathetic. She almost laughs.

As she’s almost out of earshot when Officer Kendall sees Butch standing in the corridor. Calliope smiles a little a Butch sends him in the opposite direction. That’s when the realisation of what she’s leaving hits her in the face. She’s always hated almosts.

*

_The leather jacket is far too big when she pulls it on. But the wasteland is cold and any layer is better than nothing. If she presses her face against the collar and breathes deeply it’s not like anyone sees. The smell of vault standard shampoo and cigarettes is weirdly comforting. Taking a deep breath Calliope pushes herself up. The wound on her side pulls and it hurts like a bitch. But Calliope ignores it. It hurts to walk but she can’t stay at the vault entrance forever. Slowly she stumbles down the path onto what used to be a highway._


End file.
